Steph! We are so sad you are Mooo-ving!

Good-byes are never fun, but are still an occasion for cake. Our dear friend Steph got an amazing job opportunity in Switzerland, and of course we wanted to send her off in style. What’s a better theme for her going-away party than good ol’ America! (‘Murica will miss you, Steph) We started off with some red, white, and blue cupcakes- frosted in buttercream and dusted with red and blue sanding sugar.

I actually never have “official” colored sanding sugar on hand- I guess I don’t use it too much- so usually end up making my own version. It’s not as shiny and the crystals aren’t as large as store-bought sanding sugar, but it works! I usually just add a dab of gel food coloring to a zip lock baggie with normal sugar and massage it around a bit.

The second half of our going-away cake… took a little bit of brainstorming. Lauren, Meg, and I were trying to think of something somewhat Swiss (before we knew the theme of America, because otherwise we could’ve done a hot dog or something)… and came up with a cow. Yep, a Swiss cow- kind of like the type you’d see on a Milka wrapper.

Except, not purple. Anyways… having decided this, we dove straight in and made a cow cake:

It’s a layered 9×13 funfetti cake with buttercream and fondant. I had to carve the cake a bit to make the curvy shape, but I’m happy we made it work with just the 9×13.

So post cake making, we’re proud of our cow but don’t really understand how we are going to present it… the theme just didn’t make sense. Then, a light bulb moment. Meg rolls in and says, “We are so sad you’re Mooooo-ving!”

Have you ever had a moment of realization like that? As soon as she said that, we were completely dumbfounded at how obvious and fun that was, but how none of us saw it earlier. Nevertheless, we were happy that our cow now made more sense. 🙂

Here’s our little bovine friend at the party, with a Milka eyepatch and a Swiss Flag in the cupcake by his left ear. We’re having cake steak!